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Jul

16

I spend a lot of time talking to people about information security. I find that even when they’re interested in protecting their information from theft or misuse, they’re not always focused on the complete security picture. Today’s case in point is the report [via Gizmodo ] that thieves spent NINE HOURS stealing laptops from a government contractor, loading up two semi tractor trailers with computers before making their escape.

It does little good to pay attention to digital security if your physical security is weak. Security needs to be treated in a holistic fashion in order to be effective.

Jul

7

I was out on a web site today, it doesn’t really matter which one, and was forced to create a profile for the (mis)use of the site’s owner. I found their password standards to be, well “stringent” would be a good word, especially considering the information (my profile) that I was securing. Their standards for passwords were, and I quote: Read more

Jul

1

Wow, it’s months I spend not saying anything about computer security, and then there are two in a row. Technology Review reports today that engineers at Intel have come up with a way to put a true random number generator on the processor die. This has implications for a number of cryptographic techniques that rely on random numbers to function.

Finding randomness in computers is surprisingly difficult, and over the years people have tried everything from dedicated hardware-based random number generator hardware to using a webcam with the cap left on, to lava lamps of all things as a source of randomness. In the past, the National Security Agency went so far as to use white noise from space to generate their random numbers, capturing the noise using radio telescopes.

The inclusion of this sort of random number generator strengthens protocols such as RSA, and HTTPS/SSL with the introduction of true, rather than pseudo-randomness. With the advances in quantum cryptography in the last few years however, we may soon see the end of this class of cryptography, as quantum computers would theoretically be able to break these protocols instantly.